British Airways is facing the threat of renewed strikes after cabin crew said they were prepared to take industrial action after their pay claims were rebuffed.

In a consultative ballot last week among members of the mixed fleet, 95% of crew who voted said they would go on strike. About a third of the eligible crew voted in the ballot, taken to gauge feeling in a fleet which unionised rapidly under Unite in 2012.

The mixed fleet is a predominantly younger crew, employed under inferior terms and conditions to pre-existing crew. The fleet was set up in 2010 during the last wave of bitter industrial action at the airline, when cost-cutting led to 22 days of walkouts.

Since there seems to be quite some confusion and disinformation on the topic, we would like to clarify the following…

Concerning your rosters:

In order to tackle the well-known and neverending flow of complaints concerning planning/workload issues from the recent past, the PECC (Performance Evaluation Comittee Cabin) was created around the end of last year.

Our main goal within this comittee is to come to a clear set of rules and/or tools, aiming at producing rosters that are ideally:

1) as EQUITABLE as possible (meaning aiming AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE at a fair repartition of blockhours, nightstops, blanc lines, missions, weekends off, etc, according to contract) AND

To achieve this we started with an in-depth analysis of all roster parameters, not only to identify/demistify possible problems, but also in order to determine which rules are realistic and feasable for all parties involved.

Needless to say that a ‘perfect match’ of both parameters for everyone, at all times, can obviously never be achieved and that finding the right balance and rulesetting won’t happen overnight… Nevertheless, we are convinced that there is certainly room for improvement, especially when comparing to other players in the industry.

Unfortunately the entire process is taking much longer than expected, ( but this is too important to rush) and that’s why untill this very day NO HARD RULES WHATSOEVER HAVE BEEN APPROVED NOR IMPLEMENTED! That is also the reason why there hasn’t been any official communication concerning PECC recently.

Rest assure that we are working on it and taking all your valuable feedback into consideration !! Don’t hesitate to contact anyone of us for further questions and/or remarks…

On behalf of 2.5 million transport workers and 250,000 civil aviation workers from 41 European countries and over 230 trade unions, the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) expresses its full support to the industrial action currently being in progress at ‘Norwegian Air’ by Parat.

The ETF has learnt that Norwegian’s management is not ready to come forward to any of Parat’s main requests. The most important controversial point between the management and the union is the split between the Norwegian and Danish cabin crew members, who have been so far covered by a single collective agreement. This would pave the way to full outsourcing of cabin crew and replacement of permanent workers by temporary agency staff.

François Ballestero, the ETF Civil Aviation Political secretary commented: “Together with the practice of ‘Norwegian’ to import, notably, cheap labour from Asia by employing non-European cabin crew on its long-haul routes, this is another attempt to undermine the working conditions of the existing employees. The ETF is committed to fight against social dumping and we give the full support to Parat in their struggle. We request the management of ‘Norwegian’ to return to the negotiation table and offer a fair deal to its employees.”

The ETF has called all affiliated unions organizing workers in civil aviation to show support to colleagues in Parat.

Enrique Carmona, ETF Civil Aviation Section President concluded: “The new business model used by ‘Norwegian’ creates unfair competition in European and international aviation and endangers jobs in other airlines. This may create a spiral of unacceptable social dumping practices. Therefore, the ETF is calling for solidarity actions in unions across Europe and we send our best wishes to colleagues involved in the dispute.”

Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD) President Edward Wytkind issues this statement regarding the FAA’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
(ANPRM) on drug and alcohol testing at aircraft maintenance facilities outside the U.S.: “Federal aviation regulators took an important step yesterday in an effort to ensure that foreign aircraft repair stations that work on U.S. aircraft can no longer evade drug and alcohol testing requirements. “The FAA’s announcement that it will consider extending drug and alcohol testing to maintenance providers located outside the U.S. is in direct response to a congressional mandate passed in 2012 and one that was supported by transportation labor as a long overdue safety reform. While we are disappointed that the FAA is now over a year late in issuing a formal repair station proposal as required by Congress, we hope the ANPRM process will move forward quickly and that this safety loophole will be closed as intended by lawmakers. “Today’s action also brings us closer to federal rules that level the playing field for U.S. airline mechanics.

This generation of skilled mechanics has lived through an epidemic of outsourcing inspired by a government sanctioned feeding frenzy that today has almost 70 percent of aircraft maintenance outsourced, with one-third of it sent overseas. “We are especially pleased that FAA Administrator Michael Huerta has acted in light of a weak rulemaking issued in January by the Transportation Security Administration on foreign repair station security. Inexplicably, the final TSA rule buckled under pressure from special interests and even rolled back limited security requirements embodied in the TSA’s initial proposal. “The flying public and airline crews deserve nothing but the most rigorous safety, security and inspection standards of repair work on U.S. aircraft that is performed overseas. We urge the FAA to expedite the drug and alcohol testing rule and reject the predictable tactics by those who will try to weaken or bury this most basic safety requirement.”

Today, Wednesday 12 March 2014, the European Parliament (EP) has voted on the Single European Sky recast regulation (SES2+). Despite the pressure put by the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF), its affiliates and other stakeholders, the EP did not oppose the European Commission’s approach to dogmatically liberalise the ATM (air traffic management) industry and disregarded its safety-critical aspects.

The ETF, representing more than 25,000 Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs) and ATM staff, has been opposing the Commission’s text on SES2+ from the beginning. The proposal introduces competition into all fields with a mandatory structural separation between supervisory authorities and service providers and with performance requirements driven by cost reduction. It also imposes a unique FAB (Functional Airspace Block) model which disregards particularities of individual member states and lacks any human or social dimension: no binding “human factor pillar” and no genuine social dialogue at all levels. Furthermore, with SES2+ the Commission is producing another piece of legislation, while the previous packages – (SES1 and SE2) – have not yet been fully implemented. Today, the European Parliament (EP) followed the Commission‘s approach. The most controversial elements are still in the text, as among others the unbundling of the so-called support services, namely communications, navigations and surveillance systems (CNS), aeronautical information services, meteorological services and training. ETF Political Secretary François Ballestero said: “A mandatory separation of supervisory activities and service providers together with unbundling of support services totally disregard national realities in many member states. There is no proof that this measure will increase efficiency, the contrary.

The ETF believes that it will create an unnecessary social burden.”Riccardo Rubini, President of the ETF ATM Committee and active air traffic controller, commented on the safety aspect: “The so-called ‘support’ services are in fact vital to air traffic management. For instance, communication, navigations and surveillance systems containing radio communication, radar antenna and phone communication are the ‘eyes and ears’ of Air Traffic Controllers. Forced unbundling will break the ATM safety chain. On behalf of ETF, I would like to thank those Members of the European Parliament who have supported the ETF demands.”The ETF is determined to continue its efforts for having a Single European Sky that includes safety and social aspects, being the key factors for success. – See more at: http://www.itfglobal.org/itfaviationblog/?p=3327#sthash.Aw09r7Qt.dpuf